SOASTA Survey: December 25 is D-Day, with 30% of Smartphone/Tablet Owning Americans Planning on Downloading Apps

Millennials and men are top downloaders; gaming apps expected to top wish lists

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., December 19, 2013 – SOASTA, the leader in cloud and mobile testing, today announced the results of a new online survey, which shows that 30% of smartphone/tablet owners plan on downloading a mobile app on December 25th this year. As the industry leaders in cloud testing for mobile apps, SOASTA commissioned the study to raise awareness of what could be the busiest download day of the year[1] so developers can prepare their apps for high traffic and download rates. The online research was conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of SOASTA among 2,033 Americans (1,242 of whom own a smartphone/tablet), 18 and older, in November 2013.

Of the three in ten American smartphone/tablet owners expected to download apps this Christmas day, 49% said they would download a gaming app, followed by music (43%), and weather (27%) apps. The other most popular app categories this holiday season are expected to be:

-Shopping (25%)

-Social Media (24%)

-News (21%)

-Photography (19%)

-Video (18%)

-Banking (15%)

-Transportation (12%)

Men (35%) were overall more likely than women to indicate that they expected to download an app (24%) on Christmas day, and more male millennials (18 to 34 years old) surveyed[2] who will download apps on Christmas day expected to download a game app than their female counterparts[3] (58% vs. 42%). On a whole, millennials (47%) are also most likely to download an app on Christmas day, followed by 35-44 year olds (25%), and 45-54 year olds (21%).

Considering those projected downloads – and the fact that the average American has just 33 apps on their smartphone, slightly higher than the global average of 25 app downloads per user[i] – this holiday season is expected to be a competitive one for app makers.

SOASTA’s latest survey comes on the heels of the company’s earlier research from October, which showed that 91% of smartphone owners in the top 10 American markets are likely to delete or uninstall their paid mobile apps if they had technical issues or did not work properly. The October study also showed that apps that fail to load also are often deleted. Fifty-two percent of smartphone owners in all markets would delete apps for that reason.

Earlier today, SOASTA also revealed its aggregated data from leading brands using its mPulse Real User Monitoring (RUM) solution, which shows that mobile traffic peaked during the weekend after Thanksgiving, including Black Friday, instead of Cyber Monday. In fact, mobile traffic from Black Friday (November 29) to Sunday, December 1 was 62.5% higher than it was on Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.

“Three in ten Americans with a smartphone or tablet are planning to download a mobile app on Christmas Day,” said Tom Lounibos, CEO of SOASTA. “It’s a crowded market, and we already know that smartphone owners are quick to delete or uninstall mobile apps that don’t perform to their standards. More than ever, there is a lot of pressure to get things right the first time around. It’s critical that companies test for technical issues and speed before their app hits the market, or they run the risk of losing customers during peak downloading season.”

About Methodology

This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of SOASTA from November 22 – 26th among 2033 adults ages 18 and older, of whom 1,242 own a smartphone/tablet. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact Trafton Kenney at (415) 442-4027 or Trafton.kenney@grayling.com.

About SOASTA

SOASTA is the leader in cloud testing. Its web and mobile test automation and monitoring solutions, CloudTest, TouchTest and mPulse, enable developers, QA professionals and IT operations teams to test and monitor users with unprecedented speed, scale, precision and visibility. The innovative product set streamlines test creation, automates provisioning and execution, and analyzes real user behavior in real-time to deliver actionable intelligence, faster. With SOASTA, companies have confidence that their applications will perform as designed, delivering quality user experiences every time. SOASTA’s customers are many of today’s most successful brands including Avaya, American Girl, Bonobos, Backcountry.com, Chegg, Experian, Gilt Groupe, Hallmark, Intuit, Microsoft and Netflix. SOASTA is privately held and headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. For more information about SOASTA, please visit http://www.soasta.com.

SOASTA is a registered trademark of SOASTA, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Other product or company names mentioned may be trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.